What does this mean on an oscilloscope?

[TDot 10+ year member]

I only tested this out the amp, so it might be caused by the 360.3, which I doubt; or the car itself. However, I'm asking if this could be caused by bad power? Or simply what would be the most common cause of this, and the best way to narrow it down and repair. No big 3, I'll consider that once I've narrowed this down to specifically needing that.

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[macsdad 10+ year member]

Not good, unclean signal.

 

[basswiigee]

Not good, unclean signal.

↑↑↑this↑↑↑

 

[macsdad 10+ year member]

That type of read-out typically means that the gains are to high, asking the amp to do more than it can.

 

[RangerDangerV2 5,000+ posts]

That type of read-out typically means that the gains are to high, asking the amp to do more than it can.

actually, that shows up as a square wave.

 

[macsdad 10+ year member]

actually, that shows up as a square wave.

Cool, thanx for the correction, I'm still learning too.

 

[Foulplay]

I have a scope and mine squares off as well. So what does this mean? Light clip?

 

[TDot 10+ year member]

Can the bad signal be due to power/grounding, or is it strictly an audio issue?

If it can be power/ground can I hook the oscilloscope up directly to the distribution blocks to see what's happening? If so, what settings should I set the scope to?

 

[RangerDangerV2 5,000+ posts]

Cool, thanx for the correction, I'm still learning too.

no prob, a square wave will look like like a wave with squared off tops and sides. too lazy to post a pic, so just google it.

I have a scope and mine squares off as well. So what does this mean? Light clip?

if it is a total square wave that is bad. full clipping. you dont want to clip at all

Can the bad signal be due to power/grounding, or is it strictly an audio issue?If it can be power/ground can I hook the oscilloscope up directly to the distribution blocks to see what's happening? If so, what settings should I set the scope to?

youre settings seem to be correct, 2v divisions, but try to set the ms higher or lower. been a while since I used a scope.

 

[Foulplay]

I set my gains so I have a smooth wave. Just never noticed it looking like his picture. Might need to make it larger then try it agian. Just so I can try and replicate this. Always learning

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

Can the bad signal be due to power/grounding, or is it strictly an audio issue?If it can be power/ground can I hook the oscilloscope up directly to the distribution blocks to see what's happening? If so, what settings should I set the scope to?

What you're looking at might not be "real". It could be noise being picked up by your connections. The fuzzy sides and non symmetrical look kinda indicate that. Also, your waveform is off the screen. The bottom half of the signal can't be seen. You could be driving the scope input into a nonlinear region.

You need to get the scope trace centered with no offset so you can see the entire waveform. I assume you're looking across amp output terminals and there should be no DC offset there, but doublecheck that with a DMM.

 

[pawn man 10+ year member]

it looks like some kind of distortion. it may be some sort of engine noise or actual distorted signal.